


And we have burned the world

by SerkonanBloodLilly



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Character Death, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 22:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13867386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerkonanBloodLilly/pseuds/SerkonanBloodLilly
Summary: A little piece I did on Serana's six months after the assassination of Jessamine, leading into when the first game starts. Enjoy!There are consequences for everything. Even for things you have not done, have yet to do.Sometimes, there is no turning back.Serana accepts this, even as blood runs from her hands and the sky turns black.There is no turning away.





	And we have burned the world

What has happened to Gristol.

The entier isle has been torn apart by plague. A plague that came from the very place she had, so many years ago. The scourge of Pandyssia. The weepers pay her no heed, if and when they notice her. She wonders if it would be considered mercy or slaughter to give them swift end.

In the end, corpses only bring more rats.

Not that it mattered to them, she’d watched swarms of rats consume things live if their numbers were large enough. They’d not been brave enough to do that before. She’d been fickle with where she spent her nights because of this, opting for a rooftop over an abandoned building. But this is Gristol, and stormy weather is common. A good number of times she’d bunked up in an abandoned building, choosing the highest ground for her sleeping spot. She’d take no risks. Not after seeing what these rats could do.

She couldn’t simply stay in one place, ether. Not until she got back.

She’d gone halfway across the isle, chasing one lead after another. She remembers leaving a pub one gray afternoon, hot on the trail of a new and promising lead, when the announcment of her Empresses death rattled over the speakers. She remembers the cries of anguish from citizens in the street, some collapsing to the cobblestones in shock. The blind anger as those very speakers announced Hiram Burrows as Lord Regent. She had to get back to Dunwall. She had to find out what happened.

The last time she’d seen Jess was a week befor her assassination. When Jess had insisted she continue her search for the origin of the plauge, while Corvo went to the other isles in search of aid. Jess had insisted she would be fine. Jess had insisted.

Jessamine had died.

She knows not who to blame. Not yet.

Two days prior to returning to Dunwall, she was given a letter by a young boy in an alleyway. He couldn’t have been older than 12, peering up at her with eyes blown wide in fear, a lisp to his words as he whispered, “S- Specter?”

She’d nodded, and the boy handed her the letter, scurrying off into the crowds not a second after. The seal, she recognized, the same with the paper, and the penmanship that soild it. She’d resisted the urge to destroy it, be it barley. This letter, was now evidence.

She’d not return to the Tower.

Perhaps she should have, although she suspects she’d receive the same treatment as Corvo if she ever showed her face. No matter what Burrows had claimed in the letter. She will not side with a tyrant. If her lead was true, well, that only cemented her standing.

She’d instead focused her time on weeding truth from lies, searching for Corvo, and when she found him, planning his escape from Coldridge.

Two weeks into the fifth month of the fall, they’d come for her.

Her own brothers and sisters in arms.

It’d been a cold, grey afternoon. It’d been raining, droplets of water bouncing off her armor - some forming on the lip of her hood, dripping in rhythm with the falling rain - as she sat atop a building by the abandoned ports. It had been peaceful, almost. The sounds of falling water and the clean smell that followed, purging the smell of a once great city rotting from the inside. She’d almost felt serenity, for the first time in months, when a wristbolt whizzed by her head.

Even if the bolt had made its mark, it wouldn’t have killed her. It would have bounced off, leaving her attackers just as bereft. Still, when another whizzed through the air and she doged away, sword unfurled with blue-grey eyes ablaze, she was the slightest surprised to find a reflection of the style armor she wears bearing down on her in small number. With her sword held aloft, she called out to them, voice strong. She will not waver.

“Why do you attack me?”

“Traitor” Her brethren hiss, “You conspired in the death of our beloved Empress. She should have never let you so close, you snake!”

She is not a traitor, she knows this, but they do not. Creeping ever closer with blades drawn, thristing for her blood. She cannot see their eyes, hidden beneth their hoods. Yet she feels the hatred in them. She will not back away.

“Cease” She utters, curling into a battle stance. Hands clasped tightly around her sword handle. They do not, laughter sharp, cold.

“We don’t take orders from you anymore, Specter” One spits, seeming the leader of the group. A male, with a chipped blade.

“This isn’t what I want-”

“Then what did you want, you silver-tounged vixen?” He tilts his head, Tyvian accent bleeding through every word. He pauses, the encroaching group freezing in place.

“Tell you what, Specter. Surrender now, and we make it swift” The male seems the slightest bit startled when she chuckles, tightening her stance.

“Never, Swordbreaker” He bristles at the mention of his own callsign, barking a Tyvian curse at her as she continues.

“I’m no traitor, unlike the man you now serve. Go, crawl back to your master. This is your final warning” Her voice is even, icy venom crystallized in her words. Raindrops bounce of the silvery metal of her blade, she doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want this.

The man chokes out an ugly laugh, the blue-armored statues of her former comrades silent beside him.

“So be it… Kill her!”

The rooftops are slick with rainwater, and while it makes dodging difficult, she is far more masterful then those who’d chosen to fight her. One slips, falls, neck breaking on impact with the stones bellow. One less, she thinks, deflecting steel. One less on her hands. She gets one using a wristbolt meant for her. Another, cleanly through the throat. As the fight continues, their numbers dwindle. Four remain of the eight who’d ambushed her, fighting harder with each comrade felled by her blade.

The rooftop is slicker now, coated in blood. Swordbreaker is the last remaining. He fights recklessly, screaming curses as they cross blades. Movements far too open. He is easily disarmed. Her sword cuts deep into his side, crimson spilling from the wound as he drops to his knees. She draws her blade out - flicking it once - droplets of red flying off the steel before she stops beside him, edge to his neck. His head is to the sky, hood fallen away to reveal hair blond as straw. Hands clenched around the blade wound on his side, blood dripping from his fingers. It’s futile, he knows it.

“You always were the best of us” He chuckles, wheezes, coughs up blood, pulling his bandanna off to spit. She dose not look at him, eyes trained on the sea. She whispers to the wind, yet he hears her, chuckling once more.

“Then what did you want, Specter?” There’s a fondness to his voice now, blood flow never ceasing no matter how much pressure he applies. He’s gone a little pale from bloodloss, watching her with eyes partly in the void.

He is slipping.

She spares him no glance still, blade edge pressed tighter to flesh. This isn’t what she wanted. She will not waver.

“Something I can no longer have. Riposare in pace”

He has no time to scream, let alone utter a singal word. She was precise, then, blade held aloft still as his lifeless body slumps forward with a wet thud. It is her turn to throw her head back to the grey sky, weeping for her loss, as she cannot. Raindrops wet her skin, dripping down her cheeks as her lips crack open in a silent cry of anguish. Her blade falls to her side, grasped loosley in her hand as the rain mixes with the blood staining the steel, rinsing it away one drop at a time.

Eventually, the stench of blood rises over the clean smell of rainwater.

It’s then she sheaths her bloodied blade, gazing upon the havoc she wrought. The entier rooftop is strewn with corpses, soaked with their lifeblood. Seven total, minus the one who fell.

They may have betrayed her, but she will not leave them to rot.

She gathers them all into a pile outside of an abandoned whale slaughterhouse, under the high ceiling of a covered area. The rain falls heavier now, a rumbling echo tearing through the air. The factory had not been cleaned out entirely. She finds half a tank of whale oil stashed away in a corner, and enough crates to provide tinder.

It’s a process, but she ignites a fire. It crackles, embers swirling up as she sinks to her knees, drawing back her hood. She removes her sword, laying the steel across her lap, a hand resting on the handle as she cleans the drying blood. She busies herself with it, as the fire pops and the smell of burning flesh and cloth fill the air. She apologizes, telling them what really happened. Eyes boring into the heart of the fire. She works on her blade until it shines.

Hours later, as the fire dies - embers smoldering in the dark night, stars veild by the rain - she bids their souls fairwell, bones sinking into the inky black sea. She makes a small memorial with their blades, leaving a tiny bouquet of flowers plucked from the cracks in the old stones. She will return to it whenever possible with more flowers, whenever she has time. Until it is discovered, or destroyed.

She whispers one last goodbye.

Even now, as she sits partially nude in the abandoned building she’d made base in, soaked armor drying on racks by the fireplace, she wonders what else she could have done. If anything. The rain has let up, an occasional crack of lightening setting the sky alight. Droplets tap lightly against the window she sits by, staring out to the few glowing lights of the city. There used to be more.

But then again, most lights have since faded.

She sighs, tucking herself further into the cocoon of her blanket, sullen eyes watching raindrops slide down the glass pane.

There are many things that will come to pass in coming days.

She wonders if she is ready.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations, via google:
> 
> Italian: Riposare in pace, Rest in peace


End file.
